the radiation experiments, what happened, what some of the consequences were. we have a few minutes. let me ask if there are any questions or comments. no? ok. thank you all for your attention. we will see you monday at the medical science building 2. instructions are going to be sent. thank you very much. [applause] >> you are watching american history tv on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook. >> coming up next, a commemorative ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of the

june 17, 1864, washington arsenal explosion that killed 21 women. many of the victims were young, impoverished irish immigrants. the youngest to die was 12 years old. this ceremony takes place at the historic congressional cemetery next to a monument for the victims dedicated less than a year after the accident. the event runs about 30 minutes. >> hello, everybody. my name is paul williams. i am the president of the association for the preservation of historic congressional cemetery. i want to welcome you to the cemetery. i am happy our weather has held off so far. i also want to welcome you to the sesquicentennial commemoration of the funeral for the 21 women killed in the june 17, 1864, explosion at the washington arsenal. first, the honor guard will post the colors. gentlemen?

>> forward, march. detail, halt. detail, present arms. detail, recover. detail, right about face.

detail, post colors. detail, right about face. detail, left face. forward. march. left follows right. march. company, halt. front. in place, rest. >> ladies and gentlemen, if i could have you stand up please. leading us in the pledge of allegiance will be asia elliott. asia?

>> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> thank you. you can take your seats, please. i would like to introduce our civil war docent who will introduce our speaker. >> thank you, paul. this has been an eventful week for us at the congressional cemetery. we had an event at fort mcnair tuesday at the exact moment the explosion occurred. we remembered then and will remember now the women killed that day. on wednesday, we had a visit

from the deputy prime minister of the republic of ireland. he laid this -- it is not there anymore. he laid a wreath that day to remember the women, many of whom were irish immigrants. our speaker today will be the daughter of the man who wrote the book about this long forgotten event in washington history. i met erin shortly after her father passed away. we have become friends over these many years. i helped provide names of publishers. i especially love the publisher who liked the book but did not like the conclusion. [laughter] i'm sitting there going, it blew up. what else can i say? i have gotten to know erin fairly well since then trying to do research that followed what her father was doing and all of that.

when the book finally made it into print, erin had a book party. she invited me. but i had to turn her down because my daughter was getting married that day. you know, priorities, you know. basically, she is going to tell you a little bit about what went on, what happened here, why we are here today, and everything involved getting her father's book published and all the things that followed it. now, erin voorheis. [applause] >> thank you for coming and for rallying for the events this week. i appreciate it. i found this quote researching this speech. it is by a polish poet. the living only to those who can to those nog owe it

longer living to tell the story for them. i really appreciate that you are here. some of you know the arsenal story. my hope is after today, you will tell it in your own way. i will start by giving you a brief account of the arsenal explosion. then i will tell you a little about my dad, brian bergin. in a way, you are lucky you got me because my father rarely stuck to time limits for anything. hopefully we will be on time today. the washington arsenal is now fort mcnair. june 17, 1864, was the day of the explosion. at this time, d.c. is mired in the civil war. it has been about three years. death is everywhere. most families are mourning the loss of someone killed in the conflict. this explosion could easily have been just another round of deaths that could have easily been forgotten, but it touched

the surrounding community deeply. june 17 was a hot day, kind of like earlier in the week, if you can imagine. the women showed up in their hoop skirts for work at the arsenal at 6:00 a.m. like normal. they would normally work until 6:00 p.m. they had a morning break for breakfast and an afternoon break, one hour, for lunch. the women were typically hired because they were seen as being in need. they were often widows of a union soldier were the daughters of a widow. they earned usually between $.40 and $.75 a day. it was good wages for a woman at the time but not nearly what they would have to pay a man at the same time. women were hired because they were cheaper labor and their fingers were more nimble working with tiny cartridges. the women were in the 20's to 40's. the youngest on that day was 12,

sally. 13 was lizzie. these women knew what they were doing was a dangerous job. there had been several arsenal explosions up and down the east coast. the washington arsenal employees had just sent money to the pittsburgh arsenal workers because there was the allegheny arsenal explosion prior to this one. they had just taken up a fund and sent them some money. the women we remember today worked tying off cartridges used in rifles for the war. they were typically paper or linen cartridge cylinders filled with gunpowder and a bullet at the end. it was open at the top when it arrived to the women. the women would tie it off with thread. they would stack it in a wooden box in front of them on the table. the ordinance manual for safety in the arsenal required these boxes be removed from the room

once they were full for safety reasons. unfortunately, this practice was not done and the boxes were stored throughout the room, these boxes of ammunition. on the morning of june 17, the superintendent of the arsenal, thomas brown, goes out and places three pans of explosive pellets out to dry south of the laboratory. these were in black pans. the pellets were explosive but to be used for his fireworks. he liked to put on fireworks shows. he improved the recipe because he knew better. he had these pans drying not far away from the building, unfortunately. he leaves these unattended on this hot summer day. he returns to the laboratory building. in this odd twist of fate, he finds one of the choking room girls laughing and talking too much. this angers him. she is fired on the spot because

the workers are not allowed to talk. they can occasionally sing something religious. obviously, she is fired. i'm sure what seemed like the worst day of her life suddenly became probably the best day of her life after she was out of that arsenal. remember these pans of explosives are drying in the sun. they have passed the point of drying and are actually cooking. the sun creates spontaneous combustion in these pans. explosives start to flash and spark and fly into the air. the sparks fly through the open window into the south wall at 11:50 in the morning. it lands on the worktable. in a blinding flash, it shoots along the top of the table gobbling up the gunpowder dropped as they are working. it was described as a fiery serpent. the sparks ignited the boxes of cartridges lining the room and the whole room explodes. the force was enough to lift the

tin roof a foot off the building and drop it back down again. the room was hot before the explosion. it was 100 degrees on this hot summer day. but it shot to over 3000 degrees in less than a second. most of the women killed that day were killed in the first fraction of a second when they n theed -- breathed i superheated gas. it seared their lungs. there were 28 women in that room. they all sat along a 30-foot table on benches. that was how they worked. they were sitting in their cotton hoop skirts. to try to escape from a bench in a hoop skirt with other women around you was difficult to do. as they are escaping, their dresses are brushing along the fire. they are starched cotton and go up in flames. a lot of women were burned instantly.

the arsenal men see and hear the explosion. they know inside the building are their sisters and neighbors. they run right to the building to try to help. these men are typically in wool uniforms. they are not ignited by the fire as quickly. if anything, there are smoldering embers that can be patted out. they run in to help the women. than men suffer minor burns but were not burned beyond recognition like the women were. 12 women make it out of the room. escaped, theyy are burned so badly they were taken to the arsenal hospital . that is unusual because most people recovered in their homes at the time. pinkey scott was 21. she was a widow with two dead children. she was knocked unconscious by the blast and wakes up under several bodies.

she looks down and realize how badly burned she is. she faints. she is carried home to recover. sarah is taken home. when her charred clothes are cut away, they find there are gobs of melted lead from the hoop skirt seared into her skin. when the death toll is counted for that day, there are seven identified victims and eight unidentified victims. four succumbed to their injuries later or to the primitive medical treatments and dieting -- and die in subsequent weeks. that brings us to a total of 21 victims. the recovery process begins. many of the remains were gruesome. they were unidentifiable, burnt, charred bones, often found inside the rings of the hoop skirts which survived. there are two investigations after the event. one is commissioned by secretary

of war stanton and one by the coroner. no women are interviewed in any of the investigations. on the basis of these investigations, the government determined it will pay for the funeral expenses. at this point, the workers are poor but rich in organizing skills. they get committees going. they build coffins and a stage for the funeral service. explosion happened on a friday. at the end of sunday, two days after the disaster, they would have planned and executed the biggest public funeral d.c. saw up to that point. the only bigger one would be lincoln's that would take place in nine months. it took place in the arsenal's yard with grass and beautiful trees. they had a canopied stage made by the workers. there were two rows of coffins, identified and unidentified.

they had seats for dignitaries. the arsenal officers were there. secretary of war stanton and abraham lincoln. this is his first public funeral since the death of his son in 1862. stanton had lost an infant son recently. my dad felt lincoln's presence at this funeral was a heartfelt gesture from one parent to another about the grief of losing a child. lincoln was busy and could have begged off of this opportunity to come. this money was conducted by a catholic priest and methodist-episcopal minister. the veterans reserve corps were there being bouncers and clearing the stage for the dignitaries and families. setting of the procession, they run out of hearses and use ambulances with asides roll up the mesh besides rolled up to carry the coffins.

they start on time. they head out of the arsenal north through the island community. they plan this path to go past the houses were most of the women lived. it was a visible route but not the shortest to get to congressional cemetery. they intentionally passed the house is where the women came from, but also passed a house of superintendent brown. the house goes around the capital and eventually here to congressional cemetery. we have two graves, the coffins of the known and unknown. four women were buried at the catholic cemetery at mount olivet. after the cemetery, the mourners at home and try to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. monday, june 20, less than 24 hours after her daughter's funeral, ellen roche died.

people said it was of a broken heart. pinkey scott dies of her wounds. there are two children orphaned by the explosion for their aunt margaret was to take care of them. she is arrested as a common drunkard. the girls are adopted by a prominent d.c. family. a descendent of that family is here today. there are further consequences from this explosion. thomas brown is relieved of supervisory responsible these at the arsenal but retained as a pyrotechnician. ironic. the house votes to give relief to the sufferers. $175 goes to each orphan child and $9.50 goes to each woman in the fire to replace her clothing. that is the only government money distributed to the families.

i think my dad's they were part of the story is next. it talks about the workers. monday morning, the workers come together after the funeral and decide everyone should donate a day's wages to have a monument built to remember these women. within one year, they have raised the money and collected it. they have had a design competition and limited throughout the east coast. a winner is chosen to design it. he is a 28-year-old stonecutter from ireland. the monument is built and erected and stands before us now. we don't know it was ever dedicated because lincoln's assassination came in and interrupted their plans. we have no proof it was dedicated. the monument lists the names of the 21 victims, even though some are buried elsewhere. i want to make mention of the ancient order of hibernians. the ladies auxiliary work hard

to donate the granite plaque at the base of the monument. you can see the names of the women are wearing away with time and pollution, but this stone will preserve their names even as the marble wears down. on one side, it says if i could buy public contributions by the citizens of washington, d.c., 1865. my dad felt that was to say this monument is pretty full, not because government money was abundant but because these lost lives are meaningful to so many people. my dad loved the statue at the top. it is called "grief." he felt it represented a survivor grieving for her lost friend, uncharacteristically not in the hoop skirt that killed so many women but in the frock she has. before i finish, i would like to tell you about my dad. if he were here, you would not tell you anything. i get to tell you. i think my dad has gotten the

last laugh. growing up, i was an english major and novel reader, not a historic reader. i think he thinks it is hysterical i go around and speak about civil war events. after all the time of nagging me to read historical works, it is coming to fruition here. as far back as i can remember, my dad always read to me or told me stories. our house is nothing that would have pressed any decorator, but i think a librarian would have been happy because we have tons of books everywhere. he would often tell me as a young child about the books he was reading. i always loved listening to his stories because he could make it come alive. another thing he often said to me was those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. that was usually when i was complaining about history homework or the amount i had to do. as i said earlier, history was not the thing i loved.

i did not see the importance of learning about the past when i was younger. at some point in my 20's, i began to see how right my dad was. it is so important for us to know the people of our past. i have many fond memories of going places with my dad and learning about the past. for me, that was better than any history book. one father's day, we went through the antietam battlefield. i realized i understood the individuals so much better because he could set up the context of the event in the war and paint a picture of what happened that day and how the geography mattered and the personalities came to bear for good or evil to the outcome of the day. i learned a lot of history stories from him. christmas gifts were these huge books that had long footnotes that i did not like reading. but usually i got a strategy downward he would give me the book and i would read the first couple of chapters. i knew if i played my cards right and had a couple of big

questions, i could get him to tell me the story so i would know what the book was about. i know that sounds very lazy. but historians were so much better than anything i could read because it made it come alive. i hope the arsenal women's story has come alive for you today. i want to thank you for coming out and remembering these women and hearing a bit of their story. thank you for telling their story in your own way. thanks so much. [applause] >> thank you. i would like to tell at least two stories about your father. any of you who have been coming to the cemetery have seen we had national park service craftsmen doing work on this monument. when brian was here, there was

scaffolding all the way up. damn if he did and climb up to take features. i was like, be careful up there. the other thing i should say is erin sent me a photograph. after her father died, he got a v.a. headstone like you see around here. it says his name and "eat dessert first," which to me is a wonderful thing to remember. so you understand, as we said, 15 are buried underneath this monument. it started out as 14 and then pinkey scott was buried here after she passed. 15 here. if you go over this way not far, you will see an unmarked grave that has two u.s. flags in it. that is where annie is.

back over that direction, you will see an unmarked grave with two flags on it. that is sally mcelfresh. sally was predeceased by her father who died in 1863 in one of the disease outbreaks. and two infant siblings who predeceased her also. there are four graves. they are currently unmarked. i'm trying to get the v.a. to give us head stones. if you look at the book, there is a message from secretary stanton saying we will take care of all the payment for these funerals. but it did not work out that way. the v.a. is not helping us at this point. but we will take care of that.

that is going to happen. at this point, i want to take a moment to remember the women who died in the service of their country and families. we will start with the tolling of the bell over there. >> [bell tolling]

>> and now, the names of the women. melissa adams, annie bache, emma baird, lizzie brahler, bettie branagan, kate brosnaham, mary burroughs, emily collins, johanna connor, bridget dunn, susan harris, margaret horan, rebecca hall, eliza lacey,

louisa lloyd, sally mcelfresh, julia mcewen, pinkey scott, and margaret yonson. 15 are buried beneath the monument. the other four are buried in an unmarked common grave in the roman catholic cemetery, the mount olivet cemetery about a mile or so afterwards. at this moment, i would like to call on j.j. kelly who placed the marker on the north side of the monument to permanently etch the names of the women here. thank you.

>> i am j.j. kelly, the national chairman for veteran affairs. i'm representing the national board today. it is an honor and privilege to do so and assist in the dedication of this marker which we placed here last year. i know some of you were here as well. by remembering the sacrifices these women made, we keep them alive. we keep their memory alive. it is an honor and pleasure to be here to take part in this exercise today. thank you. [applause] >> as erin said, this monument was the first ever built in washington totally paid for with

funds from private citizens. by march of 1865, this monument was already in place. there are items in the "washington star" talking about the workers building a metal fence around it for the june dedication. unfortunately, the events of april 14, 1865, took the country into a lengthy span of mourning. at the approximate time they were supposed to be dedicating this monument, the city was in the midst of the lincoln conspiracy trial, so everyone was involved in that. we found no record there was ever a ceremony dedicating this monument. try and prove a negative. it is fairly difficult. i went so far as to look in newspapers from the fifth, the

10th, the 25th, and the 50th anniversary of this event, and there was no mention of it. oddly enough on the 50th anniversary was the johnstown flood, so there was a great deal going on. now at this point, just be correct, i want to say we want to rededicate this monument in the memory of those 21 women, the women who died in support of their families and in support of the cause for freedom going on in the united states at that time. so we say to these women, thank you for your service. thank you for your sacrifice. this monument does not do justice to your contribution, to the price you paid. the 150 years later, it stands in memory of you and your lives cut short. i would like to thank you all for attending. those of you who would like to

stay around, i will do a civil war tour that will include this and a few other things afterwards. aside from that, i want to thank you. i want to thank paul, erin, asia, and the sons of veterans of the reserve for being our honor guard. it has been an honor and a privilege to work on everything to lead up to this, so thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook.